30th USDA Interagency Research Forum on Invasive Species
With my student Shiwnai Sapkota, we attended the exciting Forum on Invasive Species in Annapolis, MD.
1st conference attended in 2020
In January 2020, we attended the 30th USDA Interagency Research Forum on Invasive Species. It was my first time ever to visit Annapolis, MD, and the first time to attend that meeting.
We were excited to meet almost 200 people, all of them passionate about preserving the biodiversity, and passionate (but in a completely different way) about the biological invasions that threaten it.
Shiwani and I proudly presented a poster on the Pyrus calleryana diversity. This invasive callery pear is my main research focus these days. As a fundation for the downstream studies, we analyzed the native Asian samples, for an assessment of the species diversity and invasiveness potential. We applied de novo developed gSSRs and a series of population genetics tools.
The results are fascinating.
And scary.
More soon.
